Glenn Beck, Prophet, Knows That Bill de Blasio Will 'Destroy' New York

Shortly after Bill de Blasio was declared the next mayor of New York, Glenn Beck received a vision. New York City, the Big Apple, reduced to a pile of rubble and crime, as tumbleweeds of abandoned "I Love NY" bags dancing in the abandoned streets. Beck was kind enough to share that vision with his listeners on Wednesday, adding his own flourish to the common, conservative meme of New York City returning to the bad days of the '70s and '80s under the watch of the progressive mayor-elect. Bedecked in the wise glasses of Santa Claus, and a goatee proving that we are indeed in the Worst Timeline, Beck declared that de Blasio would "destroy" New York City as we know it. "New York will become the next Detroit," he added.

This is not the first time Beck has channeled the truth of a future under de Blasio. In October, Beck noted that the mayor-elect is clearly a "violent revolutionary" who is a "Marxist communist with a history of supporting terrorism." In the classic fashion of a true teacher, Beck urged his followers to "do your homework" on his accusations, rather than wait for Beck to produce some actual facts to back up that characterization.

"This guy is gonna make your life a living hell," Beck said on Wednesday. "For anybody who is working in New York and is too young to have lived through New York in the 1970s, do yourself a favor. Go and do some research on what it was like to live in New York City before Rudy Giuliani," he said. "You wait. You won't be able to travel to that city soon... He'll destroy it."

Your browser does not support iframes.

As we've explained previously, Beck's take on the End Times for New York isn't that unusual on the right. It was actually a big refrain from the campaign of the man who lost to de Blasio: Joe Lhota. But the history lessons from the last time the city had a Democratic mayor, in 1993, don't quite add up to that reality. The drop in crime in New York, for instance, matched an overall trend of dropping crime nationally.

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.